Ottawa. The Caribbean. London. Zurich. Bowen Island.
Melanie Mason’s hop-skip-and-a-jump route to Bowen Island included a last-minute sprint that almost didn’t happen because of the island’s shortage of rental accommodation.
The Undercurrent’s interview with the first-time Bowen Island municipal councillor started off as a story for our series on the problems that are arising because there aren’t enough places for people to rent. Up until a month ago, she was the only council member who was a renter, and she was well aware of the challenges that young families like hers are facing.
However, as it became obvious that her personal reasons for caring about the issue were intrinsically linked to her How I Got Here, the two stories have become one.
Mason grew up in Ottawa and found life taking an unexpected route when she got her high school diploma on a tall ship. She fell in love with sailing and ending up working at the Moorings, a charter company in the Caribbean. She returned to Ontario to get her degree in geography from Queen’s University and, because there aren’t many jobs for geography majors, returned to university to specialize in mapping. As luck would have it, she got a job mapping the coral reef in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. That’s where she met her husband, who’s British.
They decided to move to London, England where Mason got a job doing map-based spatial analysis of the Thames for the Port of London Authority and, later, an environmental project in Cambridge.
Her pregnancy coincided with her husband’s job offer as a bridge engineer based in Zurich, so it was off to Switzerland. Both of their daughters were born there.
But Mason wanted the girls to grow up in Canada and they chose British Columbia because it was new to both of them.
They first settled in North Vancouver. She was pushing her youngest daughter’s stroller up Lonsdale Avenue when one too many “Sorry we’re full” buses passed by. That night, she said to her husband, “This is not why we moved to BC.”
They took a day trip to Bowen Island and said, “Wow.” This is what they imagined living in BC to be like. They immediately decided to move here and, with real estate prices making ownership out of the question, started looking for a place to rent.
Their requirements were relatively simple: because of the cost of commuting, they couldn’t afford a second car, which meant their house needed to be either on a bus route or within walking distance of Snug Cove. It had to have at least two bedrooms and be less than $2,000 a month, including utilities.
Simple requirements, yes; easy to fulfill, hardly.
There was one other criteria: a space in preschool for their four-year-old daughter.
They went to Bowen Island Children’s Centre. Executive director Ann Silberman knew it would be a challenge to find a place to rent so she suggested that instead of asking them to pay for registration, she’d put their name in for a spot.
For four months they spent weekends searching for a place to rent. Cost, size and suitability all came into play. Finally, at the end of August two years ago, they found a two-bedroom apartment. But when Mason phoned Silberman with the good news, Silberman said that when she hadn’t heard back from them, she’d given the space to someone else. Mason started to cry.
Silberman said, “Don’t worry, we’ll make room.
“The whole reason I’m on this island is that people want to help you make it work,” Mason says, forever grateful for Silberman’s to-the-rescue efforts.
That was two years ago. Last year, Mason and her husband decided it was time to become home owners.
A new search began.
Finding an affordable place to buy in their price range was as difficult as finding a place to rent. They knew something would have to give. That thing was space. Last month the family of four moved into their newly purchased one-bedroom 780 sq. ft. cottage.
“We knew we could never get the full Bowen wish list so we made a compromise on space,” she says. “Ours is not a sob story but it is challenging.”
Tackling the issue of affordable housing, both for people who own and people who rent, is something she wants to take on, along with the shortage of childcare and transportation options. She knows housing affordability is a long-standing issue, and there have been lots of reports and studies, but she wants to see what the municipality can do to help. The new planner, Daniel Martin, has a background in affordable housing and there may be ways to work with private developers to increase rental housing stock.
Mason says that many people think that increasing density on Bowen Island will lead to the island becoming more like West Vancouver. She argues that it’s the lack of housing diversity that will cause that to happen. If more isn’t done to make sure that families like hers can afford to live here, Bowen will become a homogeneous society where only those who have money inhabit its mountains.
“Bowen will change if we don’t keep our diverse community,” she says. “If we don’t have affordable housing for daycare teachers, music teachers, store staff, they will have to leave. Who will make Bowen tick?”
